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Wednesday, November 5, 2008

You MUST be kidding me.

Someone recently passed a link along to me for a blog called, "Bangable Blog Babes." Apparently, I have been listed as one of November's blog babes. Seriously? Do I seem like someone that would be excited about being objectified and ranked among other women? I am attaching a screencap of the webpage so you can see what I'm talking about. Please note the blurb written next to me. I'm guessing this blurb was based off of the post I wrote about the inspirational decorations on my bathroom mirror, one of which is a newspaper clipping that says, "Female Orgasm Makes Many Happy." You can bet that I responded directly to this site already.

4 comments:

my mouth dropped when I saw your tweet about this. What a friggen idiot. This must be one of the assholes you feel is undressing you with their eyes as you walk by. brrr. just got a cold chill up my spine. Why in the world do people think they can do something like this and believe it is okay to do so? Another reason to add to your list of Why I am A Sociology/Women's Studies Major. You can help get rid of insanity such as this.

I hate the blog your talking about. I am glad that you left your comment about how offensive this is. Some of the women actually think its an honor. And what's even worse is I think this guy is married!

In whatever way the human race came to being, the males have developed pretty strong instincts aimed to passing their genetic material on to future generations. That could explain why I -- and many a man like me -- find girls sexy. And blogging girls double sexy, and blogging girls with pretty faces even more so.

The Most Bangable Blog Babes, a blog set up by a college student going by the nickname of Maddog, is an expression of these instincts. His blog has a consistent format, an excellent layout, and it cannot be denied a certain measure of creativity. Being listed in this blog could be considered a compliment. Please note, I use the words "could be considered", not "is".

And that is where Maddog goes wrong. Like males, the females of our species are selective about who to choose as mates. This selection is not only about who contributes the most suitable genetic material, but also about with whom can a strong and stable bond be formed that helps to weather the storms of life.

This selective behavior is by no means unique for humans, as witnessed by this quote from the Wikipedia article on hares: "For a long time it had been thought that this was more inter-male competition, but closer observation has revealed that it is usually a female hitting a male, either to show that she is not yet quite ready to mate or as a test of his determination." Now how about that!

A text that suggests that only the male partner performs the selection and that the selected female will then gratefully roll over, is against Nature [_], Basic human rights [_], the Holy Bible [_] (check whichever you prefer, more than one answer may apply). Maddog makes this suggestion in every description of every single selected blogger.

Now, if he would have sent each so-called bangable blogger an e-mail request and only listed the bloggers that accepted the invitation, it would be a different matter, but even then, it is not very elegant.

So far, I have done as if instincts were the only criterion for proper human behavior. But instincts are only part of the story. A defining trait of humans is their capability to reflect on their instincts, and choose to follow or go against them. Personally, I believe that that is a capability granted to us by our Creator. But whatever the origin, the capability is there, and with it the responsibility.

Poll ResultsA had noticed that the reactions to the so called Most Bangable Blog Babes blog were very diverse. Some women were flattered, or hesitantly admitted they felt jealous for not being listed. Others were angry and offended.

This diversity made me decide to post the following poll on Twitter.com: POLL: If listed on http://bangableblogbabes.blogspot.com/, would you feel A-Mostly offended, B-Mostly flattered, C-Don't know.

Via Direct Message, I got a first reaction of someone who said she didn't care at all, and found the whole question utterly irrelevant. Well, I suppose with the millions of opinions flushed out on the internet, you can't care about all and every one of them. And I've always considered indifference a much undervalued virtue. That can explain that I received no more than 5 responses: - 2 said : Don't care (or: If I were a woman, I probably wouldn't care)- 2 said : A - Mostly offended

Sometimes, it makes me sad to see so many women of all ages struggling with the fear of failure or body image issues. And then it is a joy and relief to see someone with an attitude like: hey, I'm beautiful !